After Death of Sattar Beheshti, Iranian Blogger, Head of Tehran’s Cybercrimes Unit Is Fired

The dismissal of the commander, Gen. Saeed Shokrian, follows investigations by Parliament and Iran’s judiciary into the unexplained death of the blogger, Sattar Beheshti, 35, who died in early November just a few days after being arrested by the cybercrimes police unit, known here as FATA.

“Tehran’s FATA should be held responsible for the death of Sattar Beheshti,” said Iran’s national police chief, Ismael Ahmadi-Moqaddam, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency.

It is unclear whether General Shokrian will also face judicial charges over the blogger’s death.

The public nature of his dismissal suggests that he will bear most of the responsibility for the death. In similar cases in the past, officials have been punished, but it is rare for them to be named and publicly dismissed on the same day.

Mr. Beheshti’s Web site, My Life for My Iran, criticized Iran’s financial contributions to the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon. Mr. Beheshti posted pictures of Lebanese youths having parties alongside images of Iranians living in poverty.

The exact cause of Mr. Beheshti’s death remains murky. Mr. Ahmadi-Moqaddam said Tuesday that investigations had ruled out torture as a cause of death, saying it was possible that Mr. Beheshti, who in pictures looks big and strong, died of “psychological shock.”

Iranian activists and bloggers say Mr. Beheshti died of injuries following beatings. Iran’s judiciary spokesman, Gholam Hussein Mohseni-Ejei, recently admitted that Mr. Beheshti — while in prison — had lodged a written complaint against an interrogator, in which he accused the man of having beaten him during his detention in Tehran’s Evin prison.

“I, Sattar Beheshti, was arrested by FATA and beaten and tortured with multiple blows to my head and body,” read the document, published by the opposition Kalame Web site. He added, “If anything happens to me, the police are responsible.”

Mr. Ahmadi-Moqaddam said that Mr. Beheshti was given tranquilizers while in the prison’s clinic, but that when handed over to the cybercrimes unit its officers denied him the same tranquilizers. “This might be regarded as neglect,” he said. “However, there were no signs of beatings on his body.”

Official statements on the cause of death have been contradictory. An influential member of Parliament who earlier denied that Mr. Beheshti had been tortured in any way told the Tabnak Web site that the blogger had been beaten, but died of shock and fear.

“Definitely he was beaten inside the FATA detention center,” the lawmaker, Alaeddin Borujerdi, told the Web site, “but he didn’t die as a result of these beatings.” He also stressed that the cybercrimes unit must change the way it deals with prisoners.

Iranian activists who have been in contact with Mr. Beheshti’s family say his relatives were not allowed to see his body before a hurried funeral on Nov. 6 in his hometown, Robat Karim, 30 miles southwest of the capital, Tehran.

In Mr. Beheshti’s final post, on Oct. 29, a day before his arrest, he said he was being threatened by security officials. “They told me that if I didn’t close my big mouth my mother should prepare to wear black clothes,” for mourning.

The Iranian Parliament’s special investigator into the case, Mehdi Davatgari, said he welcomed the commander’s removal. “This move shows the civil rights of our citizens are our top priority,” he said.

Donald Trump Calls Touré “Racist,” Wants Him Fired From MSNBC

The war of 140 characters between journalist/TV personality Touré, and mogul Donald J. Trump, reached a boiling point earlier today (Oct. 22) as the two exchanged insults via Twitter. In a recent tweet, the Apprentice mastermind stated, “When you are fired from MSNBC for your bad ratings and racist coverage, stop by and say hello.”… Continue

Police Officer Fired For Not Having Threesome

Allegations: LaDonna Williams, a sheriff’s deputy at Clayton County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia, claims she was fired for refusing a threesome

A deputy claims she was fired for refusing a sexual threesome with a
sheriff and another female employee.

LaDonna Williams, a sheriff’s deputy at Clayton County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia, filed a harassment complaint about Sheriff Kem Kimbrough and another deputy Alicia Parkes.

Williams claims Kimbrough gave her a card with his personal number on urging her to get in touch if she ‘needed him right away’.

She also said that Parkes started sending her nude pictures of herself before the deputy allegedly grabbed Williams’ breasts.

‘I got very angry about that,’ Williams claimed to CBS Atlanta News.

‘The next thing I know she’s asking, “Would you have sex with both of us?”‘

Parkes was referring to herself and Kimbrough, according to the internal affairs report.

Williams also alleged that Parkes had videotaped another employee in the bathroom.

Parkes has been indicted but remains employed at the office.
Couldn’t be me.

Ex-Hotel Worker — I Was Fired for PRAISING Jennifer Aniston

Ex-Hotel Worker
I Was Fired for
PRAISING Jennifer Aniston
An ex-employee of a New Mexico hotel claims he was FIRED for talking about Jennifer Aniston to hotel guests while she was staying on the property ... even though all he said was that she's "very sweet."

A man named Terry Siegler says he worked at the Encantado Resort in Santa Fe as a shuttle bus driver -- but as of Monday, he was no longer employed ... because he allegedly violated the hotel's confidentiality policy regarding famous people.

Terry tells us, the alleged violation occurred last week when he was shuttling random hotel guests who had just seen Jennifer Aniston in the hotel spa.

Terry says the guests asked if he had seen Aniston, and he replied yes, telling them Aniston is "very sweet and much more petite than I thought."

According to Terry, the guests then went back to the hotel where they openly yakked about their discussion with him -- and a member of Jen's camp overheard them, believing Terry was divulging information about Aniston to guests.

We're told Aniston's pal reported the incident to hotel management -- which then fired Terry this week, citing the celebrity policy violation.

Terry says it's part of his job to engage guests and be friendly -- claiming, "They brought [Jennifer] up first ... Was I supposed to deny it?"

Terry says he's crushed after losing his $30,000-a-year job, but he's still unsure if he'll sue for wrongful termination.

The GM of the resort tells TMZ, "I cannot confirm anything about our employees but I will say that we have a very strict confidentiality policy and we do enforce those policies."

Bits Blog: Carol Bartz on the Yahoo Board That Fired Her and Advice for Marissa Mayer

If Carol Bartz, the former chief executive of Yahoo, could go back in time, she would have changed one thing about her relationship with the board that fired her by phone last year.

Ms. Bartz would have spent more time understanding the relationships between the board members, she said Tuesday at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

Alex Gallardo/Reuters Carol Bartz at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women event.

“I didn’t understand or have the time or take the time — that’s a much better thing to say, take the time — to understand the relationships they had between themselves,” she said.

How could she have done that as chief executive? “Well, you go in the men’s room,” she said. In reality, she added, she should have arranged dinners with two board members at a time.

Ms. Bartz gave Yahoo’s former board some credit — but also a little dig.

“Unfortunately for the board, they had gone through one year of the acquisition battle with Microsoft,” she said. “And in fairness to them, they just wanted it to be simple, like no more press, no more anything. But the business is tougher than that.”

Now Marissa Mayer has taken over as chief executive of Yahoo, with an entirely new board. Ms. Bartz said she and Ms. Mayer have spoken about the job.

Her advice for Ms. Mayer was to understand that change at such a big company is hard. Ms. Mayer is trying to change Yahoo’s culture in ways big and small, like serving free food and acquiring more startups.

“One piece of advice I would give her is changing culture is not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” Ms. Bartz said. “It’s very, very hard to affect culture. And you can get surprised thinking you’re farther down the path of change than you really are because, frankly, most of us like the way things are.”

Employees might nod when an executive suggests changes, she said, “then they go back to their cube and go, ‘I ain’t doing that.’ And so I think that’s important for all of us, is to realize how stuck individuals can be, much less 14,000 people.”

Ms. Bartz did not rule out taking another chief executive role, saying she is an opportunist rather than a planner.

“I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin,” she said. “I never thought I’d be where I am. I never thought I’d have bling,” she said, flashing the rings on her fingers before adding, with perfect comic timing, “that I bought.”

Ms. Bartz is the lead director of Cisco Systems, where she has been on the board for two decades, and she has also served on seven other public company boards during that time.

The difference between a good board and a bad one, she said, is not panicking, which she said the Cisco board achieves, and being genuinely interested in the company rather than prestige or money.

She said she has turned down board positions from banks because “I like banks because they keep my money safe, but I don’t want to talk about banks 12 times a year.”

Directors who are genuinely interested will take the time to get to know one another and the executives, but not be afraid to fire one another, she said.

“When trouble strikes, which it always does — bad economy, bad quarter, activists, takeover — when trouble strikes, those board members who don’t understand or are not committed are not helpful,” she said.

Bits Blog: Bias Plaintiff Says Venture Firm Fired Her

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Ellen Pao, who filed a sexual discrimination suit against the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, says she has been fired as a partner.

Ellen Pao, the venture capitalist who sued Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers for discrimination and retaliation last May, said late Tuesday that the venture capital firm had fired her.

Ms. Pao wrote on Quora, the question and answer site, that the firm fired her Monday afternoon.

“I have been terminated from my job at KPCB,” Ms. Pao wrote. “On Monday afternoon, senior management told me to clean out my office, leave, and not come back.” Ms. Pao has used Quora before to address the public before. In a post to Quora in June, she said she had no plans to quit working at the venture capital firm.

A Kleiner Perkins spokeswoman could not be reached for comment early Wednesday morning after the Quora post was noticed.

Ms. Pao had continued to work at Kleiner Perkins after she filed her discrimination suit in May.

In her suit, filed May 10 in California Superior Court in San Francisco, Ms. Pao contends that beginning in 2006 she was sexually harassed by another partner at the firm. When she complained to senior partners and others at the firm, her suit claims, they retaliated against her, cutting her out of investment deals and limiting her career advancement. Kleiner Perkins denied all claims.

In July, a San Francisco judge declined Kleiner Perkins’s request asking that the case be sent to arbitration, all but guaranteeing an embarrassing public trial or pricey settlement. Ms. Pao’s lawyer, Alan Exelrod, said at the time that his client planned to pursue litigation.

The case has held Silicon Valley captive particularly because Kleiner Perkins, the venture capital firm that made early investments in technology behemoths like Google and Amazon.com, is one of only a handful of venture capital firms that employs women as full-time investment partners. Compared with Silicon Valley’s other top venture capital firms — Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark and Accel Partners — only Kleiner Perkins and Accel have female investment partners who work full-time.

Kleiner Perkins has been known to highlight the fact that 10 of its 38 investment partners are women. But Ms. Pao’s suit said that in reality, women were passed over for job promotions and given a smaller slice of the firm’s profits.

The Quora post was first noted by the AllThingsD site.

Rick Ross & Young Jeezy — Fight at BET Awards, Shots Fired

Rick Ross & Young Jeezy
Brawl at BET Awards
Shots Fired
A fight broke out backstage at the BET Hip Hop Awards tonight between Rick Ross and Young Jeezy that resulted in shots being fired .. sources at the awards tell TMZ. 

According to our sources, Ross and Jeezy exchanged words backstage and started pushing and shoving each other. We're told BET security and bodyguards for each of the rappers eventually separated the two.

Our sources on the scene say that after the fight had been broken up, a member of Rick Ross' entourage pulled out a gun while in the parking lot and shots were fired.

We're told Jeezy and Ross are still at the awards, which are being taped tonight in Atlanta and air next month.

A spokesperson for the Atlanta Police Department tells TMZ, "Shortly after 7:15 pm Saturday, a fight broke out in the parking lot at the Atlanta Civic Center (where the BET Awards were being taped) between two groups. Atlanta Police Department officers on scene responded to break up the fight and used OC spray in the process. Individuals fled the scene. There were no arrests or reports of serious injuries. Reports of shots fired appear to be untrue." Our sources maintain shots were fired.

We're also told that 50 Cent got into it with a rapper named Gunplay, a protégé of Rick Ross. 

Can't we all just get along?